U.s. Argues Against Abortion Pills

July 17, 1992|The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department said on Thursday that the government should not be forced to return the abortion pills it seized from a pregnant woman, arguing that the law required that unapproved drugs be seized and that the government`s leniency in other cases should not mean that it must be lenient in this case as well.

The woman, Leona Benten, flew into Kennedy International Airport on July 1 with the French abortion drug, RU486, to test a federal prohibition on importing it. She sued after the pills were seized by customs agents. She is seven weeks pregnant and should take the drug by Saturday.

On Tuesday, federal District Judge Charles P. Sifton of Brooklyn ordered the pills returned, but an appeals court quickly blocked the order.

In an argument filed with the Supreme Court on Thursday at the request of Justice Clarence Thomas, Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr said the law prohibited the importation of RU486 and any other drugs that were not yet approved in the United States.

While the Food and Drug Administration in 1988 established a policy allowing people to bring in some unapproved drugs for personal use, this ``policy creates no entitlement on the part of any individual to import any particular unapproved drug,`` Starr said. The policy permits the agency to keep out some drugs but not others, he said.

In response, Simon Heller of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, the chief attorney representing Benten, contended that the government could not be completely arbitrary.

``Suppose the agency said only men or only Caucasians can bring in drugs,`` he said. ``They can`t do that. Once they set up a policy, they must abide by it.

``The Justice Department is just putting up a smoke screen for what is at the bottom a political decision, probably coming from the White House, to prohibit women`s access to this proven safe and effective drug,`` he said.

Anti-abortion groups have opposed RU486 for moral reasons, but Richard D. Glasow, education director of the National Right to Life Committee, said there were also medical reasons to oppose RU486.

In tests in several countries, RU486, or mifepristone, has been shown to be safe as prescription drugs go and perhaps safer in some respects than surgical abortions, proponents say. The drug, made by Roussel Uclaf of France, has been used by more than 110,000 women in Britain and France, the two nations where it is legally available.

RU486 blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, cutting off blood flow to the embryo. Women usually take another drug, a prostaglandin, 48 hours later to speed the ejection of the embryo.